"The mountains are calling, and I must go."
-- John Muir
I just recently watched "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." For those of you who don't know, it's a movie about a man, Walter Mitty, who has a habit of zoning out into his own dream world, where he fantasizes about the life he wished he had. An unexpected turn of events forces Walter to stop dreaming and start living, so he leaves his life behind and goes on a global journey. Before I go on, I would like to just say that I cannot say enough good things about this movie. So I will simply encourage anyone reading this to instead go and see it for themselves. Now, anyways, I found myself attracted to this movie for two reasons: reason 1 is because I often find myself dreaming about the life I'd like to have, whether it be about finding a girlfriend/wife, or doing something heroic, or going on some sort of journey or even just my perfect idea of having a good time. Reason 2 is because I've always been in love with the idea of adventure. And when I say in love, I mean in love. If the concept of adventure was physically manifested into a woman, I would kiss her, date her, fuck her and then marry her. But I digress. Watching Walter Mitty had led me to ponder about what it means to be alive. See, in the movie, Walter embarks on his journey to find a piece of photographic film that was dubbed "The Quintessence of Life." Walter was chasing the quintessence of life; what it means to be alive. It got me thinking. What does it mean to be alive? Anyone with a beating heart and air in their lungs can be categorized as alive, sure. But are they really living? Or are they simply just not dead yet? These are the kinds of things I think about often, and I think I've consolidated my thoughts enough (for the moment) to put them down in writing.
I turn pretty much everything in my life into an adventure. All the errands and nights out with my friends; they are all little escapades. And I'm just beginning to finally plan out real journeys, like backpacking expeditions in the mountains, or traveling to different places of the country, or even different countries. My life is an adventure. You can get me to do pretty much anything if you call it an adventure or say it would make a good story. On that note, I'm also enthralled with the idea of stories and story-telling, to the point where I like to live by my own little acronym; forget YOLO, I live by DIFTS (do it for the story). I've done some pretty weird shit in my life because of that acronym, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The way I see it, embarking on some sort of grand exploit and then telling your friends about it one night around a bonfire is literally what I consider to be the worldly manifestation of what it means to be human. We experience something and the experience makes us wiser, and then we talk about it. The Latin term "Homo Sapien" means "wise man" and both experience and language are human constructs of wisdom. Dogs cannot do that. Elephants and bears cannot do that. Lesser animals are not capable of doing that. Man is the only species capable of doing such a thing. Now, in everyday life, I will consider any living organism to be alive. However, from a philosophical standpoint, I will only consider living and breathing organisms who are merely not dead yet to be exactly that... not dead yet. To be truly alive is to embrace your humanity and vitality, because man is the only animal on this planet with the ability to wholesomely live beyond instinctive and survivalist means. A house cat does not need to survive because it is taken care of by its human masters. So what does the house cat do? It sleeps all day. You will never see a house cat strap on a backpack and head to Mount Annapurna to test the limits of the feline spirit. I suppose that's what separates us from the rest of the life on this planet: the human spirit.
But, as I said before, this is what I consider to be the essence of life. The essence of life is completely subjective. I consider adventure and experience to be the essence of life; to be what it means to be human. Someone else may consider the essence of life to be art, or music, or theater, or athletics. However I believe that we can all agree that spending your whole life working and then sitting on the couch and watching TV in your free time is not, in fact, the essence of life. Playing video games all day is not the essence of life. You need to get out there and do what you do.
Before I wrap this up, I'd like to clarify one thing. I just talked about the essence of life and its subjectivity to each person. However, this passage is titled "The Quintessence of Life." So what's the difference? Well, the definition of quintessence is, as stated by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form." So quintessence is a pure form of essence. With that said, I think it will be safe to say that the quintessence of life, as opposed to the essence, is in fact not subjective. It is the same for all human beings. It is very simple to uncover the quintessence of life. It is to embrace your essence, whether that be venturing, making music, fighting, writing, helping others, acting, painting, playing sports, mastering your body, nurturing the earth, or any combination of anything that you're truly passionate about. Because passion is the one of the most human things of all. And that's what it comes down to. The essence of your life is your passion. The quintessence of life itself is to embrace that passion, to embrace your humanity and vitality. Quite simply, the quintessence of life... is to live.
I turn pretty much everything in my life into an adventure. All the errands and nights out with my friends; they are all little escapades. And I'm just beginning to finally plan out real journeys, like backpacking expeditions in the mountains, or traveling to different places of the country, or even different countries. My life is an adventure. You can get me to do pretty much anything if you call it an adventure or say it would make a good story. On that note, I'm also enthralled with the idea of stories and story-telling, to the point where I like to live by my own little acronym; forget YOLO, I live by DIFTS (do it for the story). I've done some pretty weird shit in my life because of that acronym, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The way I see it, embarking on some sort of grand exploit and then telling your friends about it one night around a bonfire is literally what I consider to be the worldly manifestation of what it means to be human. We experience something and the experience makes us wiser, and then we talk about it. The Latin term "Homo Sapien" means "wise man" and both experience and language are human constructs of wisdom. Dogs cannot do that. Elephants and bears cannot do that. Lesser animals are not capable of doing that. Man is the only species capable of doing such a thing. Now, in everyday life, I will consider any living organism to be alive. However, from a philosophical standpoint, I will only consider living and breathing organisms who are merely not dead yet to be exactly that... not dead yet. To be truly alive is to embrace your humanity and vitality, because man is the only animal on this planet with the ability to wholesomely live beyond instinctive and survivalist means. A house cat does not need to survive because it is taken care of by its human masters. So what does the house cat do? It sleeps all day. You will never see a house cat strap on a backpack and head to Mount Annapurna to test the limits of the feline spirit. I suppose that's what separates us from the rest of the life on this planet: the human spirit.
But, as I said before, this is what I consider to be the essence of life. The essence of life is completely subjective. I consider adventure and experience to be the essence of life; to be what it means to be human. Someone else may consider the essence of life to be art, or music, or theater, or athletics. However I believe that we can all agree that spending your whole life working and then sitting on the couch and watching TV in your free time is not, in fact, the essence of life. Playing video games all day is not the essence of life. You need to get out there and do what you do.
Before I wrap this up, I'd like to clarify one thing. I just talked about the essence of life and its subjectivity to each person. However, this passage is titled "The Quintessence of Life." So what's the difference? Well, the definition of quintessence is, as stated by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form." So quintessence is a pure form of essence. With that said, I think it will be safe to say that the quintessence of life, as opposed to the essence, is in fact not subjective. It is the same for all human beings. It is very simple to uncover the quintessence of life. It is to embrace your essence, whether that be venturing, making music, fighting, writing, helping others, acting, painting, playing sports, mastering your body, nurturing the earth, or any combination of anything that you're truly passionate about. Because passion is the one of the most human things of all. And that's what it comes down to. The essence of your life is your passion. The quintessence of life itself is to embrace that passion, to embrace your humanity and vitality. Quite simply, the quintessence of life... is to live.
-- Woody
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